Did a loud boom startle you or your neighbors’ dogs on Saturday night in Southern California? If so, you’re not alone.
SpaceX announced that its spacecraft, Dragon, reentered Earth’s atmosphere and “splashed down” off the southern coast near Oceanside around 10:44 p.m.
“Dragon will also announce its arrival with a brief sonic boom prior to splashing down in the Pacific Ocean,” stated SpaceX in an X post.
SpaceX’s website said the Dragon is “the only spacecraft currently flying that is capable of returning significant amounts of cargo to Earth, and is the first private spacecraft to take humans to the space station.”
A report by NASA explained that the unpiloted Dragon spacecraft was launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket that took off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 21.
Landing on April 22, it delivered about 6,700 pounds of crew supplies, science investigations and equipment to the International Space Station, NASA reported.
Then, on Friday, May 23, ground controllers at SpaceX commanded the Dragon spacecraft to undock from the port of the station’s Harmony module to begin its return to Earth.
SpaceX confirmed Dragon’s “splashdown” in a 10:46 p.m. X post, saying it completed the company’s SpaceX’s 32nd Commercial Resupply Services mission to the Space Station.
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